Now that's more like it - I'm back at Sanborn Park this week, teaching a camp called "Wild Images". I only have seven kids (2 boys and 5 girls), as opposed to the fourteen (11 boys and 3 girls) I had last week at Vasona. These kids are a bit older too, in the 4th - 6th grade range. We hiked up past Ghost Rock (a large Ohlone mortar that at some point was turned on its side so that the holes resemble the eyes and mouth of a screaming ghost - although some people claim that it looks like Elvis) today, and I asked the kids to imagine a story about it. For the rest of the hike, we all took turns telling ghost stories, and some of them were pretty grim. One girl told a story about a man who ground up his wife and turned her into sausage. One of the boys told a story about Jack the Ripper. One girl told several stories, all beginning with "It was a dark and rainy saturday night...". I told one about the fairy ring where we ate lunch, in which a group of campers are trapped by the roots of a large, old tree, which then disappears into the ground and sends up trees in a ring where the campers are held prisoner, enclosing them inside the trunks to wait for centuries until another group of campers sits down on exactly the same spot. The spirits are then released from the fairy ring and follow the campers home, where they take up residence under their beds.
After this cheerful little lunch break, we went up to a creek beyond the hostel and caught salamanders (not sure what kind, so I'll have to do a little online research). Most of them still had gills, so we didn't take them out of the water. The little creek, which seemed extra clear and refreshing after a rather hot, buggy hike, was also home to a number of dragonfly nymphs, some about to make the final metamorphosis into their adult forms. While there, we also ground up rocks and used the resulting paste as face paint. In other words, we got dirty and wet, which is what you're supposed to do at camp.
It seems like a good group. Hopefully the rest of the week will be as fun as today.

I'm supposed to go to a church tomorrow with a selection of bugs. Some sort of church camp thing. Should be interesting.

cds I listened to while lamenting the name change of Highway 666: Etant Donnes with Michael Gira "Offenbarung und Untergang", Blackmouth "s/t", Thread "Abnormal Love", C17H19NO3 "1692/2092", and T.A.C. "A Circle of Limbs"